Seven
by ambiguously
Summary: Kanan asks the wolves a question. The wolves bring him someone with a different question.


"I understand. What must I do?"

Kanan wasn't sure how he knew what the wolves wanted or what they meant. It wasn't telepathy, and it wasn't translation. When they spoke, a primal switch inside his brain activated, and damned if he could figure out why. He waited for the wolf to speak. Instead, he felt them walk away from him. "Hey!"

He went to his knees, reaching inside for calm. They weren't here to give him answers. Connecting to the will of the Force was his best hope.

He heard footsteps approaching. He turned his head. The wolves padded along quietly beside someone. Bipedal, tall, human or near-human. Kanan sensed the Force inside the stranger, but no malice.

"Hello."

The wolves vanished into the darkness as the stranger drew in a sudden surprised gasp. "Hi," he managed to say at last. He moved, head jerking. "The wolves brought me here."

"Do you know why?"

The stranger's body language was all erratic, full of nervous energy. "I asked them a question. I needed advice."

"And they brought you to me?"

"Apparently so." A teasing texture of emotions emanated from him, mixing in his voice. If he was human, he was young, maybe Sabine's age or even as young as Ezra.

"I asked them a question, too. Maybe they thought you could help me answer it."

"What kind of question?" He came closer, curious.

"What to do next. Why don't you sit down?" He felt the stranger take a matching stance across from him on his knees. "I'm Kanan. Normally, I wouldn't offer up my name this easily. I'm wanted by the Empire. But if the wolves want me to talk to you, I don't think this is the time to lie, and you don't strike me as someone who works for the Imperials." He thought for a moment. "You seem familiar. Have we met?"

"No. We never have. I know who you are, though. Everyone does." He cleared his throat. "It's nice to meet you, Kanan."

"And you are?"

He hesitated. "Call me Seven."

Interesting. "That sounds like a clone name. I can't see your face, but you don't sound like a clone."

"No. I lived with some clones for a few months when I was a kid. My mother had to go somewhere dangerous and wanted me out of harm's way." Kanan heard the nostalgia in his voice, could almost picture some little kid hanging out with a bunch of guys who looked exactly like Rex, staying up too late every night, catching joopas, and filling his ears with old war stories.

"So Seven who isn't a clone, what question did you ask the wolves?"

He sat back. "Nothing important. That must be what they're trying to tell me. They brought me to you because you're doing galaxy-changing things and have deep questions to ask. The decision I have to make doesn't matter compared to yours. Lesson learned."

"Possible," Kanan said. "As an alternative, maybe they brought you to me so I can remember that the whole reason we're fighting against the Empire is for other people to have the freedom to worry over small decisions." He let out an amused chuckle. "Master Yoda used to say that the solution to every problem or mystery is obvious in hindsight once you know what it is. Well, except he'd move the verbs around. Between you and me, I think he spent enough time in charge of younglings that he said his words backwards on purpose to teach us to listen to every word someone says, not just what we think they're going to say."

"Interesting theory. From what I've heard of him, you might be right."

"So you have had some training."

"What?"

"Your powers. You're strong in the Force. I could sense that as soon as you came close. But it's not wild, the way Ezra's powers were when I met him. You've trained."

"A little." He let out a sigh. "That's why I'm here."

"I'm afraid I can't take you on. I have a student. Hope you didn't come all the way to Lothal for that."

"I didn't. How did you know I wasn't from Lothal?"

"The accent. You've got a spacer's accent. You've grown up all over, which is probably why the Empire hasn't found you."

"Could be."

"Yet you came past an Imperial blockade just to talk to the wolves."

"My family is from Lothal." His voice went flat, like he was hiding an emotion he didn't want to give up. "My father was born here."

"Still, that's a lot of effort for a small question. Your problem must be very important to you. Maybe if we set our two problems side by side, they'll form the shape of an answer between them."

He heard the smile in Seven's voice. "More wisdom from Master Yoda?"

Kanan matched the smile. "No, but it's pretty good, hm? I'll have to remember that one for later."

"Yeah."

"What problem brings you here tonight, Seven?"

"I'm not sure I want to be a Jedi." He let out a short, sad laugh. "And now that I'm saying it to you of all people, it does sound bad. There's my answer."

"Is it? You've had training and you've got power. So if there's a reason you don't want to use them, it must be something that matters to you a great deal."

Seven moved. Kanan wished he could see the kid's face. People wore a lot of emotions on their faces. He could sense some of them coming through as Seven said, "I want to get married."

"Funny the wolves should bring you to me." He took a breath. "That's a very good reason not to become a Jedi."

"I think so." He twitched again. "I mean, I don't want to get married right now. But I've met someone, and I really like him. I don't know if I want to spend the rest of my life with him, but for the first time, I'm actually thinking about the chance of spending the rest of my life with someone. You can't do that as a Jedi. You can't get both. No one does."

"No." It was like trying to walk down two diverging roads. Your legs wouldn't stretch, and if you tried, it would pull you into pieces. "But that's not the only reason you're here."

"I'm afraid of making the wrong choice. Most of my friends, the ones who know what I can do, they think that if I decide not to be a Jedi, then I'm turning my back on the sacrifices of the Jedi who came before me. And there are so few of us left with these gifts." He took a breath. "They haven't said so, of course. Everyone has said over and over it's my choice, but I can hear the words they don't want to say."

"Truth-hearing. It's a random gift, but a useful one."

"Is it? I think I'd rather not know what people are really thinking sometimes."

"You're worried about disappointing your friends and family."

"Sort of. Not everyone thinks I ought to do the training. Maz told me once that just because you're hung like a Bantha doesn't mean you're required to work in Holoporn." He paused as Kanan burst into a laugh. "Which was really inappropriate to tell a six year old, my mom told her. Mom doesn't want me to become a Jedi. She's said the same thing everyone else has, that it's my choice, but I know she'd rather I take up a career with a lower mortality rate, like juggling rathtars. I'm worried that I don't want to be a Jedi because I want to please her, which is a terrible reason to reject my destiny, if I even can reject it."

Kanan heard a sigh, and suspected there was more. "It's not just meeting someone. Something else changed recently."

"Yeah." He radiated a peculiar nervousness now. The words he'd said to now were honest to a point. Seven was holding things back. A wise choice. He may have heard of Kanan, but he shouldn't trust him completely.

"You don't have to tell me."

"I haven't even told my mom yet." He sighed. "I was attending a flight academy. I was kicked out two days ago. They said I was cheating."

"Were you?"

"No!"

"You said you can truth-hear. That would be useful in examinations. But you say you didn't cheat, and I believe you, if that's worth anything to you."

Seven settled back. "It's worth a lot, thanks. I never listened in to the answers, not once. It's my reflexes. I can react before things happen."

"Because of the Force."

"I was faster and better than the other students in my class. One of them thought he ought to be ranked higher than I was. I could hear him thinking sometimes that people like him used to own people like me." There was a depth of bitterness under the words Kanan could only imagine. "Anyway, he and his friends went to the head of the academy, said I must be cheating, and got me expelled."

"You're lucky, then."

"What?"

"Think about it. Even if you were attending a private academy, once the Imperials got wind that you had the Force, they'd have put you in prison, or worse. They've sent Inquisitors after my student and me. Count your blessings. Besides, academies don't know everything. The best pilot I ever met taught herself most of what she knows."

He was quiet for a long moment. "I didn't think of it that way. I should have guessed you would. But it still leaves me with a problem. I was putting off the decision about Jedi training while I was in school. I'm not in school now. I have to decide what I'm going to do with my life."

"Do you want my advice?"

Seven shifted. "I can't imagine anyone's advice I'd like more."

Kanan let the compliment slide. "I didn't have the chance to choose. I was given up by my family when I was little and I was trained because that's what we did. I offered Ezra a choice, though it wasn't much of one. When you make the choice to follow the path of the Jedi, you have to surrender to the will of the Force. It takes discipline to sacrifice the things you want for the sake of the things that must be. Maybe the Force's will is for everyone you've ever known to be slaughtered by the same clones you were laughing with an hour ago."

"You never did get over Order 66."

Kanan didn't like the way he said that, like he knew Kanan. But the wolves had brought him here now. Maybe that meant Kanan needed to look inside the things everyone knew about him to see what they already had figured out and find his answers that way. "I was never good at letting go."

"You think I should let go of what I want and accept what the Force intends."

"I think things will unfold exactly as the Force intends them to whether we allow it to move through us as its instruments or not. None of us know the parts we'll play in that design, and maybe we won't ever see the full picture. Your destiny isn't set, Seven."

He felt something odd from the kid, something that echoed and glimmered like an unexpected hope. "You think we can change our destinies? Here and now?"

"I think focusing on what your destiny should be is the wrong question. The Force wills and the galaxy follows, but we all choose the paths we take to get to the end. Those choices make us who we are. You want to know what I think you should do? I think you should ask yourself if you were to die tomorrow, which would you regret more: not making your own lightsaber, or not kissing that boy goodbye?"

He could feel the blush cover the kid's cheeks, and he supposed that was the answer. Obvious in hindsight, like most answers.

"What about you?"

"What about me?" Kanan asked.

"If you were to die tomorrow, what would you regret most?"

"Easy. I'd regret not figuring out a way to survive." He let out a sigh, and sensed the kid's sudden discomfort. "Now maybe you can help me. I came out here to rescue, well..."

"I know who she is. I told you, everyone knows who you are."

"Right." He hadn't blushed in years. One advantage to controlling his own body. "Look, I don't know what you've heard."

"That anyone who's been around the two of you more than a few minutes knows you're basically married. So they've told me."

"I'd love to know who's been saying that. Or maybe I wouldn't. Anyway, her ship got shot down. I know she's alive. I know where she is. The wolves told me that if I go to rescue her right now, she'll be executed before we get out of the city. So I can't go now."

"What are you going to do?"

"That's what I'd like to know." He'd pushed aside his own worry and fear for a while as he'd worked through Seven's problem, wondering if the wolves meant to give him space and therefore clarity. "I thought all the paths were coming together, but at this moment, all of them seem to be splitting out. I have to find the right one."

"From the wolves?"

"The wolves, the Force, you. I don't know."

"Ahsoka has a trick for looking ahead along future paths." Seven was halfway through the words before he tried to bite them back. He hadn't meant to say Ahsoka's name. There were so few of them, and they had to protect each other as best they could. Kanan had failed her, too.

"It's all right. We were friends."

"I know."

"We lost her on Malachor. Same battle that did this." He gestured to his eyes. "I'm sorry if you were close."

"Lost her?" Seven asked with a strange humor. "That seems rather careless. You should go find her." Kanan would call him on the bad joke, but everyone dealt with grief in their own way.

"I know the same trick she showed you. It's not always helpful. I don't know if she told you the Force is notoriously stingy with details. You might see flashes, images, with no way to interpret what they mean. But I don't have a lot of other options."

Seven settled closer. With some hesitation, he placed his hand on Kanan's arm. The Force flowed between them, familiar and easy. Kanan gratefully took the offered power.

"What do you see?"

Kanan let the currents and eddies of time swirl. "They're right. If I try to save Hera right now, we'll both be shot before we leave the city. So that's out."

"What are your options?"

"A proper Jedi would accept the will of the Force and respect the choice she made when she led the attack knowing she could be killed. If I stay back with the rest of the team, if we don't go after her at all," he opened the vision like cracking open an egg, viewing the path inside, "she'll be dead in two days. Oh, and they'll be terrible days," he said with a thick breath. The flashes of image were more than enough to give him nightmares.

Seven said, "I don't think there's a possible future where you don't try to save her."

"Maybe not." A future loomed before him, big as day. "We go tomorrow night. It's Ezra's plan." Kanan reached out to touch the images, recoiling back as the last one consumed his inner eye with scorching flames. "Not that one." He chose another path. "Another path. I lead the team to go in after her tomorrow." The vision flashes. "No, Sabine and Zeb will be killed. No good." He pushed aside, leaving Sabine and Zeb back at the camp. "Ezra and I go in alone instead. It works." He sighed in relief. "We make it back." Another flash. "We're followed." The air attack would be horrific. "No survivors."

He felt Seven shift beside him. "Keep looking. There has to be a path. What if you go alone?"

"Getting there. All right, I go in alone. I get her out of there. This has possibilities. She's alive, and she's safe." He smiled. "I think I have my answer." The vision flashed again. Kanan saw the string of images unfurl. "Something's changed. There's..." He felt the world shudder to a halt. "There's a child."

"You knew." Seven's hand shivered against his arm. "I mean, you know that for certain?"

"She's already pregnant. She may not even know yet."

"You don't seem happy about it."

"That's not... We didn't think it was possible. The odds are so low. I never let myself hope." He shook his head, clearing away his shock. There wasn't time. "We have to go. We have to leave Lothal. If the Empire ever has any idea, if the Inquisitors find out, they'll scour the galaxy for us." His heart hammered with understanding, and with fear. The images rolled on. "She won't want to go. We'll argue. She'll want to keep fighting, but we can't. We have to keep," he breathed, "we have to keep him safe. We have to find sanctuary." A son, born alive, and Hera surviving the birth. Kanan would welcome the arguments every day in exchange for her there to have those arguments. The images didn't stop. "There's a light in the sky. I can't see it, but it's green, brighter than anything I've ever seen. I don't know what it is." His vision ended abruptly, leaving him swooning. "Whatever it is, we don't survive it."

"I know what it is."

"Care to share?"

"The Empire is developing a world-killer. The main laser battery is green when it discharges."

Kanan's problems changed as suddenly as his vision did. "You just happen to know this? Think maybe you ought to tell the Rebellion?"

"The Rebellion knows."

That figured. No matter how many times Hera swore she knew what was going on, it was obvious Mon Mothma and the higher-ups weren't letting the rest of them in on everything. "All right. Death laser. I need another path." He teased out the threads. "We can't stay on Lothal. There are a million planets we can hide on. But these end in green fire. And these end with a TIE Defender flying down our throats." Kanan shook his head as path after path spooled out, ending in disaster. Ezra refused to leave Lothal in every vision. In too many of them, Hera refused to run, returning to the Rebellion with or without him, and the Rebellion was crushed over and over. Those damned Defenders swarmed over the galaxy, tearing the fleet to ribbons every time.

"You have to keep looking. That must be why I'm here. To help you find a way to survive." Power flowed from him, freely offered.

Kanan searched for futures away from the Empire, away from everything. They'd flee into obscurity if they had to. They would leave the Rebellion to deal with the TIEs as long as he got the rest of the family to safety, as many as would come away from the war, away from civilization, into the unknown regions if need be. But the coward's road held no answers: without proper medical care from Rebellion doctors or medical droids on a world familiar with her physiology, Hera would die. World after world, future after future, she perished.

"I don't see any way," he said at last. He retraced his steps from the beginning, back to the first future, the one he'd cast aside. "There's one path that keeps coming back into view. The kids go with me to get Hera, while Zeb and Chopper stay behind. It ends in fire." He could feel the hell-heat on his face.

Another shudder touched his arm. "Can you see anything after that?"

He was sure the fire was final. He touched the vision again. The images became too disjointed to make any sense of. He saw Hera and the kids. He saw Zeb. Flickers flashed before him, pictures without meaning, chasing one another as age touched each face. With a startling clarity, he saw what had not been part of all his other visions: Time. Years and years rolled out before the people he loved. They all had a future.

Kanan emerged from the half-trance. He sat on the road with a stranger the wolves had brought. Daylight wasn't far off. He looked at Seven. He couldn't see him, but he'd found it reassured people when he made the attempt. "I found my path forward. Part of me must have known from the beginning. I have to pass through the fire. It's obvious."

"No, that's not a good answer. Keep looking. You've found one. Now you can look for the future you want."

He patted the hand touching his arm as kindly as he could. "It is the one I want. We both found our answers." He felt the wolves approaching. "You'll be going soon. Thank you for helping me."

"I could stay. I could help you find more alternatives. You should keep looking," Seven said, a strange desperation in his voice.

The wolves came then, sudden and real and implacable. One came up to Kanan. "I understand now," he said to it, feeling the hot doggy breath on his face. "All of it."

Seven said, "They're telling me it's time to go."

"Go with them. They'll take you back safely as long as you trust them, however far you came."

"Pretty far."

"I had a feeling. It was nice meeting you. I don't suppose our paths will cross again."

"No."

Kanan heard the deep sorrow in his voice as he turned away.

Most puzzles were obvious once you knew the answer, Yoda had taught him, and he had also taught young Caleb to pay attention to all the words someone said, especially the ones they didn't know they were saying. Past tense, present tense, and future all in one.

"Seven?"

"Yeah?"

"What did your mother name you?"

Seven took a breath. "I don't know what you mean."

"You're a bad liar. You couldn't even lie to me about your call sign. I'm glad you had the chance to grow up honest. Since I won't have the chance to ask your mom, I'd like to know what name she chose for you."

He took a gulping breath. "Jacen."

Kanan rolled the name around in his head for a moment. "After her brother. I like it. The next time you see her, tell her I said," he paused. Hera knew all the important things he'd want to tell her already. That was one of the things he loved about her. "Tell her things are unfolding as they should. And Jacen, remind yourself of that now and then, too."

He felt Jacen nod, not trusting himself to speak. The wolves nudged him, leading him away towards his future. Kanan turned back, choosing his own.

* * *

end


End file.
